The Cube 103 - Gift Box with Prato Biscuits and Brutti Buoni, Mantovana Cake and Candid Loaf
Code
103ON
The Cube - Gift Box 103 - offers an 'historical' tasting of the products of the Mattei Biscuits Factory.
Contains 1kg of Mixed Biscuits (Prato Biscuits + Brutti Buoni), a Small Mantuan Cake (about 400g) and a Small Candied Loaf (about 500g).
The Prato Biscuits - commonly known also as 'cantucci' or almond 'cantuccini' - are part of the Tuscan confectionery tradition that sees them as a perfect end meal in combination with the Vinsanto.
Since 1858 our Biscuits have been baked daily and packaged by hand one by one, in the classic Blu Mattei bag.
Prepared with flour, sugar, free range eggs, almonds and pine nuts, they do not contain preservatives, animal fats or vegetable fats.
The Brutti Buoni are present in our Bottega since 1910, or so ... thanks to the 'know-how' of the aunt Italia Ciampolini.
In fact, they were born form the need to reuse 'waste' ingredients from other processes: broken almonds, because in Prato biscuits we only use whole almonds, and the egg white that is a 'waste' from the recipe of Torta Mantovana, which precisely it requires more yolks than egg whites.
The broken almonds and the egg white rest and melt for a few hours, before meeting the other ingredients (flour and sugar), become Brutti Buoni and go in the oven.
In 1875 two nuns from Mantua, on a pilgrimage to Rome, were hosted by Antonio Mattei: to thank him, they gave him the recipe for this cake which takes the name from their city.
It does not contain yeast, but only butter, free-range eggs, flour and sugar, is covered with almond grains and icing sugar at will.
The recipe of the Filone Candito was conceived by Ernesto Pandolfini around 1930.
It is a puff pastry of brioche bread, covered with a thin layer of apricot jam and filled with candied cherries, all rolled up and then garnished with a layer of chopped almonds.
